Ottawa, ON – Today environmental groups Equiterre and Environmental Defence sent a letter to all Ontario and Québec MPs calling on them to oppose Enbridge’s plan to reverse a pipeline that would make Ontario dependent on tar sands oil, threaten oil security, and eventually bring tar sands oil into Québec for the first time.

“Enbridge is the largest shipper of dirty oil from the tar sands, and now they want to tie Ontario’s oil supply to the tar sands by cutting off other sources,” said Gillian McEachern of Environmental Defence. “Ontario can’t afford the risk of depending on the world’s most polluting and expensive oil at a time when the province is shifting to clean energy.”

Enbridge has stated that it plans to ask the National Energy Board for permission to reverse the flow of oil in its Line 9 pipeline, which currently supplies oil refineries in Sarnia, Ontario with oil from the North Sea, OPEC countries and Canada’s east coast. The reversal would make Ontario entirely dependent on oil from Western Canada, and as conventional oil runs out that supply will be mainly tar sands oil. Limiting supply options also threatens Ontario’s energy security given the recent shut down of one of Enbridge’s pipelines for two months.

Enbridge has also stated that a second phase of the project may involve reversing the rest of Line 9 to Montreal, which would bring tar sands oil into Québec for the first time.

“It isn’t in the interest of Québec to accept Enbridge’s dirty oil,” said Steven Guilbeault of Equiterre. “Our province has been a leader in the fight against global warming, and now, rather than bringing tar sands oil in for the first time, we need to be rapidly shifting our transportation off oil altogether.”

The letters sent to all MPs from Ontario and Québec can be found at https://environmentaldefence.ca/reports/letter-ontario-mps-re-enbridge-pipeline-plan-january-24-2011 and www.equiterre.org.